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DAISY winner honored for quality care by Heather Woolwine Public Relations The health care world is many things: healing, wonderful, caring, intimidating, frustrating, and overwhelming. But from a patient or family member’s perspective, finding one simple answer to a vexing health problem often is an undertaking akin to finding the ever-elusive needle in the haystack.   Fortunately for one patient and his son, Teresa Kelechi, Ph.D., R.N., CON associate professor and most recent DAISY (Diseases Attacking the Immune System) award winner, knew where to find that mysterious needle.   Registered nurse Laurie Zone-Smith, right, Clinical Services Administration, holds the banner that will be displayed near Dr. Teresa Kelechi's work area.  “I had searched the MUSC intranet for someone to get my elderly father’s leg ulcers under control. I heard a vascular surgeon tell my father there was a wound care clinic, but he wasn’t sure my dad’s situation required it. Angry at that, I began searching via Google,” NelsonLittle wrote in his nomination for Kelechi. And as Little continued to search for options for his suffering father, one name kept popping up.   “I called the listed phone number, expecting to be called the next day by an appointment specialist. Teresa called me personally within one hour,” Little wrote. “By the end of the call, she had assessed my dad’s situation, given me some interim treatment steps, and set up an appointment, and all while getting her clinic moved to a new site. Talk about multi-tasking.”   The good experience for Little and his father didn’t end there. Full of praise for their first visit to the foot and wound care clinic and meeting Kelechi, Little said he and his father were pleasantly surprised to find Kelechi smiling and engaging her patients by name, and for spending several minutes with Little and his father to get to know the newest clinic participants.   “It was more like he was a guest than a patient,” Little said with enthusiasm. In three visits, Little’s father’s ulcers were healed; no new ones surfaced, and the two men feel comfortable knowing how to take care of any ulcers that may arise in the future.   “We have a great new friend at MUSC,” Little said. “A good patient care specialist doesn’t have to have an M.D. to treat people kindly, considerately, and expertly as Teresa definitely does all these.”   Kelechi is a board certified gerontological clinical nurse specialist and a certified wound care nurse. Her research interests include the use of infrared thermometry to detect the potential for stasis ulcer development in individuals with chronic venous insufficiency and a clinical intervention for the healing of leg ulcers related to chronic venous insufficiency. Kelechi’s work has landed CON a grant from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Nursing Research, to conduct a study on skin temperature and perfusion in venous disease.   The DAISY Award is given monthly to an MUSC nurse who embodies the efforts and vast knowledge required of a nurse in today’s health care system. Created by the DAISY Foundation to recognize nurses throughout the country, the award is co-sponsored by Sandpiper Retirement Community, a continuum of care retirement community in Mount Pleasant.   All DAISY Award winners receive an African Shona Tribe sculpture entitled, “A Healer’s Touch,” a framed certificate, a daisy bouquet, and a DAISY Award pin. The DAISY Foundation also provides cinnamon rolls for all the nurses in the winner’s unit. MUSC is among 50 medical facilities honoring nurses with the DAISY Award. This is one initiative of the foundation whose overall goal is to help fight diseases of the immune system.     Friday, Nov. 10, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publications at 849-1778, ext. 201.